


Drowning, Deep Inside Your Water

by sk8rpssockpup (MissIzzy)



Series: Liaisons [8]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: 2009 World Figure Skating Championships, Break Up, Casual Sex, F/F, F/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-20
Updated: 2009-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:18:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/sk8rpssockpup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tanith weathers the breakup season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning, Deep Inside Your Water

After Four Continents, Evan took a couple of days off and came to visit Tanith, and that was when things came to a head. Within an hour of his arrival they were arguing. And then he actually said what they’d been avoiding talking about, that she was in love with someone else. Her only response to this was to tell him what she’d really thought about his all but cutting off contact in December, when she’d needed his support the most.  
  
He turned and walked out. Half an hour later he came back and said he didn’t think he could take it anymore, and didn’t think she should either.  
  
She protested. She denied. She begged for forgiveness. But then he started to explain, he started to lay the facts out. By the end of it she was agreeing with him on everything, which he’d known she’d do; they’d always thought the same way.   
  
“I love you, you know,” she said. “Even if I love her too.”  
  
“And I love you,” he replied, the only time, as far as she could remember, he’d ever said it to her, and now the only time he ever would. “But maybe that’s only all the more reason to end this now, before it hurts us both even more.”  
  
They agreed not to comment about it to the media until after Worlds. He gathered what things of his were at her house and threw them in a duffel bag. He hugged her, and they wished each other luck. Then he was gone. She watched him drive away and wondered why she wasn’t crying.  
  
It only sunk in that they’d really broken up when she got to the rink and saw Oksana. Which made it clear enough what she now had to do.  
  
They were alone, and Oksana smiled hello and moved to kiss her. Tanith almost let her, before hardening and pushing her away. “We can’t do that anymore,” she said.  
  
“Boyfriend?” Oksana asked.  
  
“He’s not anymore,” said Tanith, hoping Oksana would get the message.  
  
Oksana didn’t, but at that moment Morgan entered the locker room in tears, and they were both distracted. Morgan was a stubborn girl, and they spent five minutes questioning her in vain, before she finally dried her tears and the three of them went out to practice together.  
  
It was only after practice that Oksana got a chance to try to persuade Tanith not to make this a double-breakup, saying she wasn’t like Evan, and then saying she loved Tanith, the first time either of them had said anything like that to each other. Somehow that made Tanith lose it, and yell at her, “You cost me Evan, you bitch! Don’t you get that? How the hell can I touch you now?”  
  
“No my bad thing,” Oksana sobbed. “You vant me, you take me. You cost you Evan, not me!”  
  
And she was right. It was Tanith who had laid eyes on Oksana, it was Tanith who had suggested to Evan they open the relationship back up-because their problems had started already; the breakup was definitely not just because of Oksana, or his neglect-and it had been she who had seduced an Oksana reluctant and frightened about her own boyfriend finding out. Tanith knew she had noone to blame for this whole mess but herself, and the real reason she couldn’t touch Oksana again was because she knew she didn’t deserve her.  
  
But she couldn’t bring herself to admit that to Oksana, and she shook her head and said, “Either way, you and I are through.”  
  
She spilled her guilt to Ben instead, on his couch that night, which was where she fully allowed herself to feel the pain of losing Evan. This was worse than losing Fedor had been. With Fedor she hadn’t had specific dreams of their future, hadn’t invested her heart in her plans with him, and even before the breakup, she’d started the process of properly seeing him for the piece of shit she now knew he was. With Fedor, she could proudly dismiss him as being unable to accept that she’d gotten her Olympic miracle when he hadn’t. She’d lost him when she’d won silver, and that had made it easy, and certainly not her fault. And already things had started with Evan, even if nothing had happened yet besides a stolen kiss in Torino; had that made them doomed from the start, for reasons of karma? Now she had no plans left after Vancouver, especially since Ben’s back wouldn’t let him do much professional skating.  
  
“Go west anyway,” Ben told her. “Go and make it big in Hollywood, and get yourself a real celebrity boyfriend. Don’t let his living there stop you. Hell, call Shae-Lynn Bourne and ask her for advice about the solo skating thing.”  
  
Tanith took his advice in that she called Shae-Lynn Bourne and left a message on her answering machine. She wasn’t sure if she expected a response or not, but she got one, and the following evening found herself having a surprisingly casual conversation with her childhood idol about possibly meeting up later in the month when they would both be in New York. Of course it wasn’t like they didn’t know each other, hadn’t performed together, hadn’t spent plenty of time together-they’d toured together, for goodness sake, but this felt different.  
  
Later that night she got a far more surprising call from Johnny Weir. He gave no reason for why he was calling, but he asked how things were going, how Ben was doing, if she would like to hear some juicy New York gossip. She had no doubt he knew, that Evan had told him, and possibly while having sex with him, so she was grateful he avoided talking about that. But it was still strange, she thought, because he was still far more in need of sympathy than she was. She tried to give it, but he didn’t want it. At the moment, his philosophy was to think more about the fact that he’d been invited to perform at a Fashion Week party and he was extremely happy about that, though he asked her not to tell anyone yet. Being confided in made her feel strangely better.  
  
Just before they hung up because they had to go to sleep, Tanith asked, “Just tell me, did you call because you were worried and wanted to know if I was all right?”  
  
A pause, and then, “Yes. I did, Tanith.”  
  
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s got to be the nicest thing anyone’s done for me a while.” And it was; she wished he could see how broadly she was smiling.  
  
It took a week for Oksana to get it through her head that Tanith wasn’t changing her mind, that it really was over between them. She clearly was devastated, and Tanith knew had she been in her place, she would have been deeply angry. But every time she thought maybe she was being too harsh, she thought of Evan and all the damage this had done, and when it still hard to think too much about Evan without wanting to curl up and die, it made her recoil from Oksana too.  
  
Eventually Oksana gave up. She stopped trying to waylay Tanith with pleas, stopped trying to guilt her into taking her back with reminders that she herself had done nothing wrong.  And then Kostamarov paid a visit, so she couldn’t anyway.   
  
His visits put everyone at the rink in a sour mood, maybe his girlfriend especially.  Tanith hated it when he attended practice. Not just because it meant she had to deal with him and Oksana together, though it was hard for her to see the way he looked at her. More like a regained possession than a girlfriend. It was also the way he looked at Tanith herself, the amused contempt, the way he eyeballed her legs and feet and clearly analyzed her edges. It was worse because Ben wasn’t always on the ice with her; his practice times were still limited, and when she was alone with the other skaters on the ice she always felt strangely naked and vulnerable. When Kostamarov was there and Ben wasn’t, Tanith felt as if the general opinion of the arena was that she didn’t belong there.  
  
By the end of the week, it had lit a fire. Which was a good thing, because even after her boyfriend went home, Oksana took up his cause. Every time they were on the ice together, Tanith felt Oksana’s eyes on her. Of course, she couldn’t concentrate on it like he’d been able to do, but for someone with her own skating to worry about, it was amazing how many times Tanith caught her looking. Of course Tanith was looking too, and the men were looking when they were both there; everyone looked. But not like this. Not with scorn.  
  
Hell had no fury like a woman scorned, Tanith thought, either in love or in the attitude of her training mates towards her. She grit her teeth and worked all the harder. She alternated between feeling worthless and inadequate and angry and determined. Neither state of mind was very pleasant. She stretched her legs and pointed her toes until her lower body hurt the entire rest of the day. She positioned bits of her body and her skating she hadn’t even been aware existed at one time. She drilled the paso doble extra after it was announced as the compulsory for Worlds.  
  
Natalia happily worked her to the bone. Then she all but dragged her off the ice, asking her if she wanted to end up injured herself just as Ben was really recovering. “You lose boyfriend,” she sighed, “and then you don’t lose his problem?”  
  
“It’s how he’s gotten where he was,” Tanith commented, more for Oksana to hear than Natalia. “And his attitude is partly where I’ve gotten where I am. I owe a lot to him.” This was only a half-truth, if that; Tanith didn’t really need anyone to prompt her in situations like this. But when she saw the pain in Oksana’s eyes, she was glad. Hell had no fury, and Oksana had made a mistake in scorning her back.  
  
So it went on when Tanith went up to spend a day with the girls in Harlem, and then an evening with Shae-Lynn Bourne. By then Ben’s rapid recovery was all that was keeping Tanith from being completely miserable most of the time. She might be starting to feel like a better skater, but she absolutely hated being on the ice with Oksana. Harlem was a welcome respite, even when there was a moment when she had an interview and the reporter asked her about Evan.  
  
She met Shae-Lynn in an empty rink in a corner of the city it took her over an hour to get to from Harlem. She was stunned when she found Shae-Lynn had gotten them a private session. “It was luck,” Shae-Lynn told her. “Someone got injured.”  
  
It might have been luck, but they took good advantage of it over the next hour and a half. It was useful to be able to practice hydroblading and broad, flashy step sequences without having to worry about bumping into anyone. But there was also that Shae-Lynn started touching her in ways that were not, strictly speaking, professional, especially during the last five minutes or so of the session, when she also asked if Tanith really had to drive home immediately.  
  
“This borders on sexual harassment,” Tanith told her. “No, wait, forget borders, this is sexual harassment!”  
  
“I took a calculated risk that you wouldn’t mind,” said Shae-Lynn, grinning. “You don’t, do you?”  
  
She was right in that Tanith didn’t. She still had too much of that idol-worship lingering inside her to turn her down. Especially when her body was aching for it; she’d gone without sex for a hell of a lot longer than this, sure, but she hadn’t even been masturbating much lately, and the feeling of loneliness since she’d lost two lovers at once had been very strong. She didn’t have enough of the idol-worship, however, to refrain from more scolding on the way to the hotel.  
  
She stopped it though, when Shae-Lynn said, “Blame my ex-husband. He left me with some bad habits,” and there was a hard tone to her voice.  
  
“I shouldn’t say though,” she said, when they were in her hotel room, “that all the habits my ex-husband left me with were bad.”  
  
“So what good habits were there?” Tanith asked.  
  
“Hop onto that bed and I’ll show you.”  
  
Five minutes later Tanith was gasping and clutching at the blankets. Five minutes after that she was writhing under Shae-Lynn, begging for more. Shortly after that she lost track of time until she was losing control and screaming, coming harder than she had in months.   
  
By the time she regained motor control, Shae-Lynn was already guiding her hands, whispering to Tanith to touch her. “You should’ve asked me for that before incapacitating me,” Tanith told her, but the prospect of touching Shae-Lynn, making her moan and writhe and come, brought her back into focus and it wasn’t like she didn’t have some talents of her own, which she was now eager to show off. “Don’t forget the breasts,” Shae-Lynn told her, and Tanith licked and sucked on them until the older woman sunk her nails into Tanith’s back and let out tiny desperate sounds. When she finally bent her head and buried her tongue in Shae-Lynn’s wet heat, she nearly came again just from the feel of it and the sounds the other woman made, and she had to reach down and touch herself because it was just too much, then pull out and put her fingers in instead so she could see Shae-Lynn Bourne’s face as she came. That did make her come again, and when Shae-Lynn learned that, she wouldn’t stop giggling. Tanith finally shoved her tongue into her mouth to make her stop, and they made out until they were both hot again, and her third orgasm of the night meant Tanith was pretty much done for at least a few hours, much to her regret.  
  
“Hungry girl,” murmured Shae-Lynn then, and cuddled her. “If it’s true your boyfriend dumped you, he was an idiot to let you go.”  
  
It was well meant, but Tanith had to shake her head, “It was my fault. I wanted too much, out of him, out of life. I always want too much.”  
  
“Don’t think that way,” said Shae-Lynn. “There’s no such thing.”  
  
“Oh?” said Tanith. “Tell that twizzle in Goteburg that.” It was something she was very sure of now, that the reason she had fallen at the worst time possible was because she had simply wanted to win too much.  
  
“You’re not still kicking yourself for that, are you?” Shae-Lynn asked her, dismayed. “Hasn’t Ben told you you have to share the blame with him, period?”  
  
“Plenty of times,” said Tanith. “I think he hopes if he says it enough, I’ll have to believe it.”  
  
“But even so, you can’t dwell on it. Surely you know that. How are you going to get past it, Tanith?”  
  
“One way and one way alone,” replied Tanith grimly. “By winning.” Worlds or Olympics, she didn’t even care which anymore.  
  
“You don’t sound that optimistic.”  
  
Damn her, she was too good at seeing things. Tanith tried to escape: “Well, there is always the concern of Ben’s injury. It’s going well; we’ll be able to skate no problem, but we lost time. Don’t be fooled by what we say to the press.”  
  
“I know not to be, but it’s not just that, is it?”  
  
Tanith gave up and confessed it: her breakup with Oksana and Oksana’s behavior afterwards, and beyond that, the feeling of inadequacy that had plagued her for most of her career, the way she always couldn’t help but hear it, that she was technically weak, that she was holding Ben back, that she was pretty enough to look at in her costume but she wasn’t strong enough to win World titles and Olympic gold. “It’s the thought I might not be worthy of Ben that’s the worst part of it,” she said. “Sometimes I think I could shrug the rest of it off, the derision, the accusations, even the results….but I wonder sometimes, if it would have been better for Ben that he never met me.”  
  
“Well,” Shae-Lynn spoke so shrilly it startled Tanith, “I’m certain you’re being weak, Tanith, if you’re letting Oksana’s stares make you believe that about yourself!”  
  
“It’s not just her,” Tanith tried to start.  
  
“Right now, it is,” Shae-Lynn insisted. “She’s trying to get revenge because you dumped her, and she’s trying to take out her closest competition in the process-I mean, the French aren’t even going to be there; that’s what I’ve heard anyway-and you shouldn’t go letting her succeed like that. What does she know? Oh, she’s such a good skater.”  
  
“She’s more talented than me; don’t try to deny it.”  
  
“So what? Anyone who works hard enough-and I know you will, Tanith-can still beat her; it’s never impossible, especially not now, with the new scoring system. And I’ve been watching this season, Tanith, so I see what’s happening. While you’re picturing yourself as struggling to survive, you’re actually going forward, you and Ben both; I’ve seen you two do it. I watched those compulsories from Cup of China and you know what I thought? If I was Oksana Domnina, I’d be scared to death of my training mate. Because by Vancouver, if not earlier, she could beat me. Don’t think it’s just because you broke her heart, Tanith; that woman is persecuting you as a dirty trick as well, and you need to keep that in mind.  
  
And as for what the public says about you, about being the weak link, well,” and here she moved her head over Tanith’s and looked right into her eyes as she said, “I’ve heard that my entire career.”  
  
Tanith shook her head in sheer disbelief. “No,” she said. “No, that’s impossible.” All her memories were flashing through her head; watching Shae-Lynn and Viktor Kraatz on TV as a girl, wanting to be as beautiful and talented and perfect as the former, hearing the commentators talk about how they were equals, how he wasn’t like those Russian men who only presented their more talented partners(they might not have specifically said Russian men, but that was what they implied), dreaming she’d get a partner that talented(that she might not be his equal hadn’t occurred to her when she’d been that young), screaming outrage at the TV in 1998, her ears deaf to any hints that the Olympic results were anything but the most foul and dirty robbery-even older and wiser, she still thought they should have at least medaled-watching, always watching, staring in amazement when she at last met Shae-Lynn Bourne, such an accomplished, confident woman, whom she still wanted to be like.  
  
That woman was now grinning smugly at her and saying, “You would never have believed it, would you have? But it caused me a few sleepless nights in my time, especially in 2001, you know, when everything started going wrong. But then I remembered when I first met Viktor and we joined hands and he  _knew_  he wanted to skate with me, and what right did anyone have to harp at him that he should skate with someone else? If Ben stood by you at the cost of an Olympics for him and until the very last minute was ready to give up another one, who should be so presumptuous to say you don’t deserve him? I would say he’s the best judge of that, and he’s made his opinion loud and clear.  
  
And furthermore, I can tell you why he needs you. I don’t remember who said it first, but there are two kinds of athletes out there, those who love to win, and those who hate to lose. And the ones who win are the latter. And Ben, he only loves to win, doesn’t he? While you, I know you absolutely hate to lose. You say you want too much? The truth is, you have to want it for the both of you. People who go on talking about how Ben would be World Champion without you don’t know what they’re talking about; I wouldn’t put money on his even being on the podium. He. Needs. You. He needs you and your hunger and your drive and your ruthless ambition-I’m sure people have called you a bitch and scoffed because a lady shouldn’t want it so much, but it’s what’s taken the two of you as far as you’ve come. Never forget that. And never, never, let them make you think you don’t deserve all they let you have and more.”  
  
When she absolutely had to catch her cab, Tanith stumbled out of the hotel room with her mind having now been blown in every manner possible. She was in the cab when she called Ben and asked if there was any news, not expecting there to be any.  
  
She nearly dropped the phone when he replied, “You might say that. Leif’s left Morgan.”  
  
It was the shocker they would have seen coming if they’d let themselves, but the truth was none of them had wanted to. Believing Morgan and Leif’s partnership would dissolve after two years of idealism had just been too painful. If Tanith or anyone else had given it any thought, they would have considered the possibility on that day Morgan came into the locker room in tears. But Morgan herself, as she confessed later, had been in denial about it most of the time before it had happened.  
  
It meant that the worst tension in the rink was no longer between Tanith and Oksana, because Leif was still around, declaring he was done skating all together and was going to coach. It was hardly the first time people had heard that song from him, and everyone assumed he was thinking of his new partner, and everyone tried to make sure he knew he wasn’t welcome; the sympathy of the Ice Works was firmly with Morgan. But still he wouldn’t go away, and Natalia wouldn’t send him away, insisting on believing him until provided with clear evidence otherwise.  
  
This was when not everyone even liked Morgan, but Tanith and Oksana both did, aware, perhaps, that it would hypocritical not to, and for the next week or so their animosity was largely dropped as they did their best to comfort her. They threw names of possible partners at her, they agreed when Morgan zealously declared she’d see to it Leif didn’t find a partner in the US, and was thinking of calling Lauren Senft to keep him from finding a partner back home in Canada, and then, not really that surprisingly, Tanith took Morgan home one night and things more or less proceeded from there.  
  
It was an awkward affair, that first night. Morgan hadn’t been with another girl in a while, and seemed to have forgotten what to do, and Tanith ended up with an elbow in her face several times. It took her an hour to make Morgan come, and she didn’t even come herself. The next night went a little better, but it was only on the fourth night that the sex really started to get good.  
  
Meanwhile, while in Tanith’s presence, Morgan took to blaming Skate Canada for all her woes, and demanding to know how Tanith had escaped them. Reminding Morgan she’d never competed for Canada internationally didn’t seem to affect the girl much; she was convinced that federation didn’t care. “Leif only medaled for them once,” she said. “A lousy Junior Grand Prix bronze over five years old now. The USFSA was bad enough, but they were even worse. How many dreams do skating federations destroy, Tanith? Remember Julia Vlassov?” Tanith had to admit, the whole story didn’t paint Skate Canada in a very good light.  
  
One scene from those nights that stuck with her was when she had another phone conversation with Johnny, and when they woke up Morgan he agreed to be put on speaker. When Morgan brought up Julia Vlassov to Johnny, Tanith frantically shook her head at her, but Johnny’s response surprised her. He was able to update the two girls with more recent news of Julia than they had, albeit news that was still a couple of months old, and he delivered it without any sign of discomfort in his voice. They both were wondering how he found out, but even Morgan knew better than to ask that one. Besides, there was only one person who was likely to giving Johnny news of that girl, and that the two of them were apparently now on such friendly terms put certain aspects of Tanith’s life deeply in perspective.  
  
As the liaison continued into its second week, Morgan started to move through her anger and depression and towards acceptance of her new situation; she started looking towards the future, and she showed Tanith a long list of potential partners, including plenty of ones from other countries. “I’m not sure if the USFSA will hold me for that Nebelhorn medal or not,” she said to Tanith, “so I might be stuck here for all of next season, but I don’t think I’d get much of anyplace that quickly anyway, so right now, I’m basically free to skate for any country I can get citizenship for by 2014. Though there’s always that residency problem; I don’t want to leave here, you know. I think I made a mistake rushing into a new partnership, panicking that I couldn’t lose any years, and then of course I lost them anyway.”  
  
Tanith didn’t tell Morgan, but she admired her persistence. Had she been without a partner at Morgan’s age, she probably would have given up. It was enough for her to thank Ben again for existing, which confused him, since after all, he was the one with the chronic back injury.  
  
Though now they were doing all the lifts again, and while on the first day Tanith spent every second in the air in terror that Ben was suddenly going to drop her and double over in pain, by the second day she started to think they were going to be okay, at least for the moment.   
  
And then there was that moment on the second day when they got off the ice, and Tanith caught Ben staring, and when she asked “What?” he said, “It’s just that…you really have turned  _amazing_  now. I’m starting to feel like Roman Kostamarov must have felt sometimes. Partnering a true star is harder than it sounds.”  
  
Personally, Tanith thought Ben was generous to assume Kostamarov had any shame, but that was beside the point.  
  
And unlike Kostamarov, Ben was a true match for any star, and even as Tanith started to believe his words, see the pride in Natalia’s face when she looked at her first American creation, understand the meaning when Morgan traced her thicker, stronger thighs at night, and feel it in her own bones, that whatever might have been true before now she really could be worthy of any title that might come, and then just smile when the USFSA officials monitoring them exclaimed at their improvement, the greatest joy of it was still that she had Ben and that when she joined hands with him, she was finally able to believe that they were the best team in the world and that nothing could stop them. It was the fulfillment of a childhood dream, and it felt even better than she’d hoped.  
  
Then there was the second Friday before Worlds, when she and Ben ran through their Tosca, and it was even better than usual, and a moment after they finished she heard Ben whisper, “My God, are they crying?”  
  
They were, Natalia and Gennadi both. As was Leonie; she and Oscar were on the ice too; he was shaking his head, looking dazed. And Oksana and Maxim, they were on the ice too. Tanith saw Oksana bow her head.  
  
Oksana’s on-ice persecution had already died down; after that it ceased all together. She had to know it simply would never work again.  
  
Monday morning Tanith came into the rink in tearing spirits; she and Ben were certainly going to Worlds now, and sometime during the weekend she found herself believing, for the first time in her life, that they could actually win. Even the previous year before that fall she hadn’t really believed it. In the locker room, she smiled at Oksana for real, for the first time since that fateful day in February. Oksana’s face lit up.  
  
Then a moment later, Leonie came in with the news that Vitaly was dead.  
  
All three of them came to the ice unable to smile. The men they met were equally shaken. In a rare display of compassion, a clearly grieved Natalia spoke a few words before she put them to work. Again Tanith and Ben had an excellent runthrough of the free dance Vitaly had created for them, and again they brought their coaches to tears, though this time it might not have been because of their skill.  
  
Then that evening, as if Tanith had needed any further kicks to her gut, she got a call from Tessa, who had been trying to call her all day, because she’d wanted Tanith to hear the latest piece of news from her first: Fedor was going to be at Worlds. He’d succeeded where Morgan and Leif had failed: he’d gotten Azerbaijan to accept him as a representative.  
  
Tanith thanked Tessa for the gesture, though she wasn’t sure it made any difference to her. She spent a hour trying to convince herself she didn’t give a damn, that she could hate her former boyfriend without his success getting to her, that his being there wasn’t going to feel like he was invading her life and taking her comfort in it away, or that she was never going to escape him.  
  
Then she picked up the phone and called her other former boyfriend for the first time since he’d broken up with her.  
  
Evan answered saying her name in confusion; he still had a special ring attached to her number. Or maybe he’d just looked at the number and recognized it. When asked if he could do a very great favour for her, he replied, “Sure, what?”  
  
“Kick Fedor’s ass,” she told him. “He’s going to be at Worlds. For Azerbaijan. So kick his ass for me, if you don’t hate me right now anyway.”  
  
“On the ice or off?”  
  
“Both. Either. Well, actually, you’d probably get in trouble if you did it off the ice, so just do it on.”  
  
“Okay,” she heard him laugh. “No problem. Will do.” A pause. “How are you doing?”  
  
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think I’ll be fine when I get to LA, you know. And you?”  
  
“I’m good. I’m really, really good. Hope you feel better.” He’d known. She hadn’t even had to tell him.

After that they said goodbye, but that phone conversation changed more than Tanith had initially intended. In the following days, she started reading articles and watching interviews and even asking Johnny about Evan, just to see how he was doing. She had pretty much avoided knowing before then. And then it started to hurt, even more than it had before, because the Evan that was revealed to her was one always smiling, one ambitious without being obsessed, one sensible and smart, and one happy and contented. In short, Tanith found herself being reintroduced to the Evan Lysacek she had fallen in love with three years ago, and had thought gone, consumed by events and ambitions.  
  
And that made her wonder if the reason he was back was because he didn’t have her anymore to encourage his more unsavoury traits, since those were the ones they’d had in common. If trying to possess the man she wanted would only destroy him, whether he was Evan, or whatever man-or woman-she met down the road. Was she that horrible girlfriend who ruined her man?  
  
That Friday Tessa called her again to tell her Fedor wouldn’t be at Worlds after all; Skate Canada had refused to release him. Either that, or there had been a bureaucratic snagle at the ISU; even Tessa didn’t know which. The two organizations, in their typical fashion, were each claiming it was the other’s fault. After she put the phone down Tanith collapsed laughing.  
  
Sunday night in LA Brian Joubert invited himself along with her up to her hotel room. Since he’d broken up with Valentina Marchei a number of months back he’d given Nathalie Pechélat a run for her money for the title of official French slut. Nearly going mad with anxiety for the competition and aware of his reputation as a stud in bed, Tanith was in no mood to refuse. And at first saying yes seemed like a great idea, because he had a tongue that could flood her body with mindblowing pleasure and a nice, big dick, and when they were done she felt ridiculously better; she’d needed the stress release.  
  
As late as when he cheekily asked her if his dick was bigger than Evan’s, she declined to answer because it was just a touch smaller and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But then he told her-outright told her, which convinced her he was really an idiot underneath it all-that he’d bedded her for the psychological advantage over Evan.  
  
She was so possessed with rage she actually managed to shove him hard enough that he rolled out of the bed and onto the floor. She hissed at him to get out, then added exactly what she would do if a word of this got back to Evan. “I’m not going to be used as a weapon against him,” she told him. “I’ve done enough to him already, and anyone who tries to use me as one, well I can make him never feel safe around a male ice dancer again, you hear me?  _Tu comprends?_ ”  
  
His response was an indignant mix of French and English, demanding to know if she thought he would really stoop so low as to tell Evan as an attempt to weaken him like that. He’d had no intention of telling Evan, he insisted; it was merely to be an advantage in his own mind; Evan himself should not be affected.  
  
She told him again to get out, and he got dressed and got out. After that, she swore herself to celibacy for the rest of the week, or at least until the end of the men’s competition.  
  
It was up and down. Second in the compulsory was up. Watching an undeserving Joubert beat Evan was down. Winning the original dance was way up-but maybe a little too much, because now Tanith could feel that gold in her grasp, and she was terrified. Then that evening, she sat alone in her hotel room, and watched on TV as Evan did it. At long, long last, he was achieving what she’d watched him dream about for two and a half years. And now she couldn’t share the victory with him.  
  
The following night it was her turn. The question remained at the back of her head if she and Ben would even be allowed to win now, but she ignored it. She finally gained the ability to stand right next to Oksana Domnina and feel absolutely nothing, her mind was so occupied. For the first time since the competition had started she didn’t even scan the audience for Evan; she had the general feeling he was watching, but he might be doing so on TV, and at long last it didn’t matter, because she didn’t care.  
  
Most of the free dance felt good. Not the greatest they’d ever skated, but very, very good. Possibly good enough; she didn’t know. She couldn’t measure how they were doing while they were skating anyway, though she knew they were clean, she knew they were strong, and she knew this was a program that would have won plenty of World Championships, whether it won this one or not.  
  
During their final lift, as she threw her arms up into the air she saw the past year flash before her eyes. All of it ran through her head: the fall, the final result, the painful goodbyes in Detroit, Skate America, Cup of China, the Finale, Ben stumbling away, falling to his knees because it hurt so much. There was her final, brutal conversation with Tessa before going to Aston, the first post-coital conversation with Oksana as she’d started to understand what she’d gotten into bedding the woman, her two breakups on the same day. There were Natalia’s blunt demands of the summer, her strategic praise in the winter, her tears in the spring. Finally she remembered Shae-Lynn’s words to her, “never, never, let them make you think you don’t deserve all they let you have and more.”   
  
Then she sank down into Ben’s arms with the knowledge that they had skated three of the strongest programs they had ever done back to back at Worlds. Programs that could win. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. A year’s worth of guilt and grief evaporated in the flash of a moment and a sense of triumph filled her heart, so intense it became a sharp pain in her chest, and her mouth fell open in a silent scream. At first she tried not to cry, but then when she pulled herself up and saw the sheer joy in Ben’s eyes she broke.  
  
She was only brought back to cold, hard reality about seven minutes or so later, when she watched Meryl and Charlie perform the skate of a lifetime, a skate that deserved to win the segment at least-she could be honest enough with herself there, a if-that-doesn’t-win-the-bronze-nothing-will skate, and then, after two or so glorious minutes thinking about how proud she could be of being one of two American teams on the podium, even if it was just with the silver, she watched them get their scores…and just miss. She heard the gasps and outraged mutters, the loud booing of the audience, saw Meryl and Charlie’s resignation as they suffered one of the worst robberies in the history of the sport, and knew in that moment, before Oksana and Maxim have even skated, that unless the upcoming program was a complete disaster she and Ben would not win.  
  
It was not a complete disaster. There weren’t even any major mistakes, which might have given her and Ben a chance. Might have.   
  
She actually couldn’t say, looking back, that either she and Ben or Oksana and Maxim deserved it more than the other. That would have to be determined by someone who was both extremely knowledgeable about ice dance and completely impartial, and Tanith doubted such a person existed. All she knew was she’d honestly wanted it too badly to care. Maybe again too much, who knew?  
  
Especially when it occurred to her that things being the way they were there was now no way Oksana and Maxim would be off the podium in Vancouver. And it didn’t seem likely Tessa and Scott would be off that podium either; surely the ISU had no wish to suffer a repeat of the aftermath of Nagano or Salt Lake, and surely they’d noticed enough about the behavior of Canadian skaters, right down to Patrick Chan’s comments this week, to quiver in fear at the thought of angry Canadians in their home country. And when Tanith couldn’t see Isabelle Delobel and Oliver Scheonfelder missing the podium when they’d shown how good they were before her injury, where did that leave her and Ben?  
  
And yet Ben was so happy. Of course he was happy. He didn’t hate to lose; he only loved to win, and it was easy to call this a victory. Tanith could hardly begrudge him that; it was him who struggled with his back all those months, it was him who had given everything he had just to get here. He more than had a right to be overjoyed. And it was a good thing he was, because media ability or no, it was only that he was that allowed Tanith to smile through the next hour or so. She smiled and spoke optimistically and was graciousness itself and secretly wished there was a convenient tower she could hurl herself off of.  
  
The next morning she didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to show her face. But of course she had no choice. So she pulled herself up, shivered in the overly air-conditioned hotel room, took her shower-and then found a message from Evan on her phone, asking if she wanted to go for a walk with him when she had a free moment. “I just thought you might like to have someone to talk to,” he said.  
  
As it happened, she couldn’t avoid him anyway. First of all, all three of her and him and Ben were holding tickets to the  _Dancing With the Stars_  taping on Monday; she and Ben had wanted to go to that since watching Kristi Yamaguchi win the previous summer, and now that Shawn Johnson was on it they wanted to cheer her on. Then of course, there was the Harlem benefit, the tour, and probably the World Team Trophy; word was Johnny didn’t want to go which meant Evan very likely would. So to get used to him again beforehand sounded like a good idea.  
  
Plus he was right; she did want someone to talk to, and he was the perfect person for her subject, because he was still like her. He understood how much this hurt, in a way most people didn’t. She did attempt to congratulate him, but she clearly couldn’t mean it at the moment and he told her it was okay; he was sure she could mean it in a few more days and he had no problem waiting. They talked about the upcoming tour and team event and their plans for the summer. He asked about the strange rumours coming out of the French camp about Isabelle Delobel, but Tanith hadn’t been paying attention to them. Then much to her surprise, he detailed the foot problems she immediately knew he’d zealously kept from the press.  
  
When he saw her surprise, he said, “You still want to be friends, don’t you? You acted like it last week.”  
  
“Well, of course,” said Tanith, “but I wasn’t sure if you…”  
  
“You were, like, in my circle before we hooked up,” he said, “why shouldn’t you be now? You heard me tell Ben, once you’re in, you’re in forever. If you’d slept with Domnina behind my back or something like that, that would’ve been different, but you didn’t.” He held out his hand. “So still friends?”  
  
“Definitely.” They shook.  
  
And that settled it for good. They were friends who could talk and laugh during the exhibition, they could go to the taping of  _Dancing With the Stars_  and cheer on Shawn together-and it just had to be Argentine Tango night but at least Shawn did a Lindy-Hop instead, and they could go on tour together and even team up to play charades on the bus against Ben and Kimmie, as formidable a duo in the game as they’d been the previous year.  
  
There were only two difficult spots for Tanith. The first was having to break the news of their breakup to Shawn, who was very sad to hear about it. Later she confessed to Tanith she’d thought it might happen; the way the two of them had been in Oklahoma it would have been impossible to miss the signs, but she’d only hoped all the more they’d work it out. It was one of the few times Shawn seemed to Tanith to really be as young as her years.  
  
The second was the habit Evan took of taking a different strange woman-and in one case, a man-to bed every single night of the tour. There was no way that wasn’t going to sting, at the least at first. Tanith did get over it by the end of the week, but it was still hard enough that it was probably the reason she herself seduced Todd Eldredge.  
  
Sex with Todd turned out to be…interesting. He was extremely careful and considerate, and very thorough; he managed to make her tingle in places even Fedor and Evan had never found. But he seemed kind of detached from it. His hands didn’t hold her too tightly, his thrusts weren’t too strong before Tanith wrapped her limbs around him and took over the rhythm, and he didn’t seem to actually look at her much. It felt almost like a piece of workmanship on his part. Tanith Belbin had in her life slept with two guys who had acknowledged themselves to be gay, plus a third who had come out to the figure skating community afterward. Todd reminded her very strongly of all three.   
  
But he wasn’t like them. He’d not only been married, but Tanith knew for a fact that his marriage hadn’t been a front. Those who had disliked Todd’s ex-wife had joked he’d had to have loved her to put up with her, and there was no doubt he’d had deep feelings for her, and had fully intended to be a true husband towards her. Plus Tanith had never heard of a single instance of him sleeping with another guy.  
  
The figure skating community of the past, Tanith knew, had been filled with guys who had said they were straight and believed it, who had never touched a man and dismissed their desires to do so with various excuses, and who had often eventually caused great pain to themselves and others. In the general world of the present, Tanith also knew, plenty of such guys still existed. But nowadays they were pretty rare in the figure skating community, where guys were generally encouraged to accept what they were and admit it to their friends, if not to anyone else. On the other hand, Todd was a little older, and Tanith knew things had been very different in the 80s then they were now. How they been in the early and mid 90s she honestly didn’t know.   
  
It was kind of strange, because the next morning Tanith found herself feeling like she was waking up beside a dying breed, a skater closeted even to himself. She also wished she could do something to help, but she doubted there was much that could be done.  
  
One thing that was obvious was that she wouldn’t sleep with him again. But that seemingly consigned her to celibacy for the rest of the tour, unless she did as Evan did and pick up strangers, which honestly didn’t appeal to her at the moment. Most of the other skaters were either monogamous, completely unattracted to women and willing to acknowledge it, or both. The one exception was Kimmie, and Tanith doubted the girl would be willing to sleep with someone who had just bedded the coach that was clearly  _in loco parentis_  to her.  
  
Kimmie told her later that she had in fact been considering it since before the tour, but Tanith’s bedding Todd had indeed put her off. But only for a couple of days. Then she came on to Tanith backstage during the show and Tanith spent the rest of it anxious that Todd would find out and get angry.  
  
Still she nearly decided to say no, because she had an idea this wasn’t going to be a simple matter. She knew that Kimmie had requested the previous year that Johnny take her virginity, and he had ultimately participated in the chain of events leading to its loss at Worlds, though whether the deed itself was done by him, Stephane Lambiel, Carolina Kostner, or Tomas Verner, Tanith neither knew nor cared. What she did know was that he had been involved enough that he had hinted to her, Ben, and Evan a week later that he thought “something sexually traumatic” had happened to her at Skate America that year. He hadn’t said anything more definite, but Tanith could put the pieces together. He’d asked if they thought she was okay, and she’d seemed to be on the surface, but what skater didn’t? And after watching her skating continue to tailspin, Tanith didn’t think she was okay by a longshot.  
  
When Tanith finally did say yes after the show, she resolved to be careful with Kimmie. But in some ways the girl was the exact opposite of her coach in bed. While Todd had been happy to follow where Tanith led, Kimmie said as soon as they closed the door behind them, “I want you to lie down and not move until I tell you to.” So instead of being careful, Tanith found herself ceding complete control while Kimmie stripped her naked, she herself taking off only her shoes, and did exactly what she wanted for awhile, asking what Tanith preferred on occasion but not that much. At one point her nail scraped Tanith’s oversensitive clit and made her double over in pain, and Kimmie apologized for that, but then told Tanith to stay on her side while she went into the bathroom.   
  
She came back with the washcloth and when she started wiping her ass Tanith nearly called a stop to it because she wasn’t sure she wanted this. Fedor had persuaded her to try anal once; it had gone very badly. Evan had also asked for it once; she’d told him no vehemently and he hadn’t asked again. But on the other hand, she told herself, it was only a tongue…  
  
Kimmie tickled Tanith’s labia with her hand as she touched her tongue to the small of her back, getting a surprised moan from her even before she slid her tongue down and her fingers in, and it did feel good, getting fucked front and back together, and Kimmie stopped to whisper “Yes…” as she rolled Tanith onto her stomach, and Tanith had never in her life felt this level of surrender, this vulnerability to another person, her hands clutching the sheets, her mouth releasing her cries through the room as she was overwhelmed. She was shaking all over, her hips were rocking back and forth between that tongue and hand. She came to the sound of another “Yes…” out of Kimmie as her tongue pulled away but her fingers only moved harder, getting deeper as Tanith shuddered around them.  
  
It was still echoing inside her when Kimmie flipped her over and at last started to undress, taking off her shirt and jeans, and order Tanith to touch her body. She closed her eyes as Tanith obeyed and seemed to go limp for a moment, relaxing for the first time, but then she took Tanith’s hands and guided them, steering them away from her underwear. She never took her bra off at all, and only took her panties off when she pulled herself up to Tanith’s mouth, leaving a trail on her chin and collarbone, and whispered, “Lick me,” then rode her tongue, hands clutching the bedframe, hips moving hard enough that Tanith didn’t have to do much work, only touch Kimmie’s back very lightly with her fingertips and close her eyes and let her have her way until she let out a sharp cry and her clit pulsed against Tanith’s tongue.  
  
Then she heard Kimmie say, “Oh my…we forgot the draw the curtains.” She got off her and Tanith heard her run to the window-it was a good thing she still had her bra on.  
  
“I don’t think anyone can see us this high up anyway,” she offered as she wiped her jaw and torso, and groped about for a brush; her hair was even more of a mess than it usually was after sex.  
  
Kimmie didn’t respond. As Tanith stood and set to work on her hair she sat back down on the bed and stared at the wall. Tanith found herself asking if she was okay.  
  
“I don’t know…” said Kimmie. “You’re only the third girl I’ve been with, you know, and the first two were my best friends.”  
  
“Did it frighten you? It’s okay if it did.”  
  
“Not frighten, exactly…more like I’ve been thinking this entire time. Well, except near the end,” she gave a strangely nervous giggle. “Like, why do we do what we do in life? Why did the two of us end up doing this tonight? Why did I enjoy controlling you so completely this much? Why did we end up spending our lives skating? Why have I plodded on when I know what my odds are now? Why does everyone in the world argue and hurt each other so much? I’d really like to know the answer to that last question.”  
  
“Wouldn’t we all,” said Tanith, because everything else she could think of saying was far more trite.  
  
“I guess I’m kind of disappointed,” she said, “because none of my plans have turned out right. Now even my plan to go roadtripping with Katy and Danielle this summer. We’ve been talking about it all year, but now it looks like we’re not going to be able to coordinate the time off. Maybe next summer. But where will we all be next summer?”  
  
“On the post-Olympic tour, of course,” said Tanith, and hey, if it was run by IMG, Kimmie could get in on her World Champion credentials whether she made it to Vancouver or not. She was fuzzy about exactly who was arranging this post-Olympic tour she’d heard about or even if was going to happen, though. And it might be a little bittersweet for her, because there was a very strong chance it would conclude her and Ben’s partnership. Maybe they’d team up once a year or so, for a couple of charity shows, for a few years more, but maybe not.  
  
Tanith had never in her life suffered a loss like Ben was going to be. Noone she’d lost, not even Igor, had been in her life for so long and so constantly, or defined it so much. She wondered what this strange Tanith-without-Ben person was going to be like.  
  
As if receiving her following thoughts, Kimmie said, “I wonder if anyone stays with you forever. The truth is, I don’t know if I’ll be in contact with Danielle and Katy next summer. There’s a chance neither of them will be skating anymore.  I fear sometimes we’re growing apart already. The only ones who are golden are Gordeeva and Grinkov. Maybe that’s why God killed him. And so we honor his memory forever.”  
  
“Then that’s what we can do with everyone,” said Tanith, sitting down next to her, hovering her hand over her shoulder until Kimmie leaned in as permission to touch. “Whether death or something else do us part. Remember what we held, however long we held it.”  
  
That was something Tanith herself thought continually later that month, when she, Ben, Evan, Jeremy Abbott, Rachel Flatt, Caroline Zhang, Caydee Denney, and Jeremy Barrett found themselves spending one week together that they were all definitely going to remember for the rest of their lives. The World Team Trophy started with her and Ben trouncing an admittedly weakened ice dance field and ended with them all winning, draped from head to toe in patriotic regalia, throats a little sore from cheering, wondering if the Olympics were going to be this much fun. If Meryl and Charlie could’ve just been there the event would’ve been perfect.  
  
In fact, she and Evan got along so well, it was strange to think they’d been at each other’s throats only two and a half months ago. Tanith felt no desire for further reconciliation at the moment-she still loved Evan, but that love had quieted somehow, but every occasionally she wondered if they might try again, in a year or so, when Oksana was a distant memory and he no longer had a reason to neglect everyone around, and they’d both grown and matured and could have more realistic expectations of each other.  
  
But then she decided no, that time was passed. Also, the more she thought of the knee-jerk way in which her breakup with one had led to her breakup with the other, the more she wondered if she could be anything, now, to either Evan or Oksana without being the same thing to the other. It felt wrong for either one of them to have more of her than the other.   
  
Which meant that she should be friends with Oksana again, but at the first the opportunity to be so was missing. Oksana and Maxim had gone off to Munich to get further treatment for his knee almost as soon as Worlds had ended, and even when Tanith and Ben returned from Japan they still weren’t back. Though even then Tanith didn’t stick around long. She went on holiday, she went to her family and had her bra stolen by the dog, she went to Detroit and met with all her old friends who greeted her as if the discord that had defined her last month training there had never happened, but she didn’t mind, because she went out in the middle of a Detroit rain shower and danced as she got soaked to the bone, she found she had come home, and then she wondered if it would be worth it to go to LA after the Olympics anyway. She especially thought it during one moment when she was alone with Charlie, who seemed different to her now, as if she'd never really looked at him, and she noticed how he was looking at her.  Though she did west now, for a couple of days, watched a hockey game and saw Evan and more people, and then went back again with Ben and got photographed in fake snow.  
  
But between the few days she was in Aston, the trip to Detroit, and even a couple of ice dancers who came to see her in LA, she was again brought to think of Oksana, and a belief that the woman was going to need her friendship. It soon became clear to her that the new World Champions would not be welcome when they returned to American soil.  
  
Tanith hadn’t talked to a single American ice dancer in Aston who hadn’t told her she and Ben had been robbed. Morgan, who often wasn’t around either because she was in the thick of tryouts, but did sleep with Tanith the last night before she went on her vacation, had wondered who Oksana would think she was and hinted she would be outright hostile. Tanith told her not to be, but Morgan only assured Tanith she didn’t have to do anything. “Of course you feel obliged not to be a poor sport; that’s understandable. But I can speak my mind freely.” She also told Tanith that everyone she’d talked to about it in Boston agreed that injustice had been done.  
  
In Detroit, of course, everyone was steamed about Meryl and Charlie. Even Tessa and Scott said they were sad their friends hadn’t medaled. There was also much talk there about how Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates had been short-charged. “They should’ve been in the top ten,” said Madison Chock. “If they’d been Russian, they would’ve been.” She was the only one Tanith heard actually say it out loud, but when she did, everyone nodded in agreement.  
  
In LA, there were less ice dancers, but those who Tanith met expressed their indignation on the behalf of all three teams, but especially on hers and Ben’s. One of them commented to her, “You stand for all of you, you know, because we all want to be you. If you’d won that title, we could now all believe any of us could do it.”  
  
All in all, the opinion of most of its members seemed to be that with their treatment all three of their best teams, the judges at Worlds had insulted the American ice dance community as a whole. And when with each passing month that community became more aware of its own strength and depth of talent, more convinced they were the best in the world, the outrage grew deeper and more vicious, just waiting for a target. When Tanith thought of the reception that awaited Oksana and Maxim, who certainly weren’t to blame for any of this but were the most obvious target in the world, when they walked back into this budding hornet’s nest, she almost felt sick.  
  
The night she returned to Pennsylvania, she emailed Oksana to set up a time to talk over the phone. She was worried Oksana would refuse to cooperate, but she didn’t, and so Tanith was able to warn Oksana of what was coming.  
  
“I do not fear,” Oksana told her. “Do not scare me avay.”  
  
“Have you ever dealt with anything quite like this?” asked Tanith. “I know what’re thinking, Oksana, because in your place I’d be thinking it too: I’ve worked all my life for this, I’ve suffered horrible setbacks, I’ve gone to a new country where everything’s been big and frightening, and to top it off my partner’s suffering from a chronic injury that would ruin everything if it flared up at the wrong time; what’s one more obstacle? I know better than to try to scare you away, Oksana; you and Max will be here as sure as Isabelle Delobel will in Vancouver, baby or no baby. If we weren’t like that, we wouldn’t be at the top of the world. But you’ve got to brace yourself, Oksana. Persecution at the rink can make your life hell. Believe me, I know.”  
  
She had meant it simply as being honest, though she knew it would have to come off as an accusation. She was very surprised, when Oksana’s reply was, “Tanith, I vant say, I am sorry, because of that.”  
  
Tanith could hear her repentance, and it brought out her own shame. “And I’m sorry too, Oksana, that I did what I did to you. It was thoughtless and selfish of me, and I know it must have hurt. But I want you to know now, whatever my countrymen do to you here, I promise you I will not join them. I’ll even try to stop them as much as I can. And if you want me as a friend, you have me.”  
  
Then she heard sobbing on the other end.  _“Spasibo,”_  Oksana choked out.  _“Bolishoe spasibo.”_  
  
For an hour or so the next morning Oksana’s reaction made her feel guilty again, because it seemed a little too likely it was an indication that Oksana’s feelings for her ran deeper than she’d thought. But eventually she came to the realization that she could make amends in the next months, and if she could not give Oksana her love again, she could give her something better, in the form of the friendship and support she just might need to continue her journey. Let none say that Tanith Belbin would take the easier route to Olympic gold.  
  
With this there came at last a peace Tanith had not known since that day in February when she’d felt as if she’d torn her own world apart. She could get back to work with Ben and break in new skates and start searching for music and still smile through it all, because she’d been through worse. She could sleep with Morgan with decreasing frequency, and accept that their affair would probably end sometime in the summer without regret. She could call Evan one week, and Johnny the next, and talk and laugh with both of them as if they were all juniors again. She waited for Oksana to return, knowing she would when she could, and ready to do as she had promised when she did.  Tessa and Meryl started sending her long emails which they titled “The Detroit Report,” and updated her on the goings-on of all the skaters there, and she sent them back “The Aston Report.” She could exchange emails with Charlie as well, because she'd started doing that, and read between the lines about the possibilties that were rising up between them.  
  
But she was in no hurry.  She had officially been single now for the longest time since she’d been eighteen, and she was starting to like it. It kept her free of obligations and let her know she could make it in life alone if need be. It also allowed her to take a fresh perspective on her life and her past three loves, until she no longer regretted any of them, nor anyone else she had slept with, either during the past year or even before that, as they had turned her into the woman she was.

**Author's Note:**

> Tanith said in an interview that she actually did have a conversation with Shae-Lynn where she talked about all the claims of her holding Ben back and not being strong enough, and Shae-Lynn's response was, "I've heard that my entire career." Though she made it sound like it took place when they were touring together. She has also said she never really believed they would win Worlds before 2009, and she and Ben did reduce their coaches to tears on the practice ice. Vitaly is Vitaly Popkov, who was the main choreographer for Linichuk & Karponasov's students at the time of his death just before Worlds.


End file.
